Friday, 4 January 2013

Living Steel - Still Profitable?

Living Steel - Still Profitable?

I think most of us know that Living Steel was a great way to make some really good gold early on during the expansion but as prices dropped, many moved away from this market as the profit margins got smaller. I know I was one of those who left it for a while, especially as the Ghost Iron Ore price didn't seem to come down by much at the same time. However, I recently snagged a bargain bundle of Ghost Iron Ore & decided to look at the costings for Living Steel once more.

I bought 92 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore at around 32g per stack for a total cost of 2944g. I already had 4 stacks in my bags so I converted all of them to Ghost Iron bars (48 stacks of bars), split them in half & sent 24 stacks to each of my alchemists. Converting 24 stacks of Ghost Iron bars to Trillium, I expected 48 Trillium bars for each alt but both my alchemists are Transmute Mastery so in the end, I received 62 on one alt & 61 on the other.

So that gave me enough Trillium Bars to do the Living Steel transmute for 10 days on both alchemists so I kept a note of how many I received each day, obviously hoping for some nice procs! Without transmute mastery, I would have received just 20 Living Steel but in the end, I received 27.

I've been selling them as I produce them except on days when the price dropped really low. At the last count, I had sold all of them for a total of around 10900g. With an initial outlay of just 3000g, I think it's fair to say that yes, Living Steel is still profitable on my server as long as I watch my raw material costs.

What I haven't done is check for other uses of Living Steel. It may be that crafting Epic armor, the panther mounts or the Living Steel belt buckle would be more profitable but I don't have the patterns yet so plain Living Steel is my best option. As always though, check your own auction house for prices & use your own judgement.

7 comments:

With the upcoming addition of the Lightning Forge and the Blacksmithing weapon recipes in patch 5.2, I think it's safe to start buying out Living Steel when the prices dip down. Post patch 5.2, we should see a spike in demand as weapons are crafted w the new recipes.

That's certainly something to take into consideration as well. That being said, have we actually seen the new recipes (what their stats are, what mats they take, etc.)? I'm hesitant to invest too deeply there until I know for sure.

Presumably there will be some raid-level gear. I'm hesitant about that because frankly, crafted epics are very hit or miss on some servers (mine included), often due to a very small active raiding population.

The part about classic weapons and such in the patch notes is interesting, though. I'd like to see what comes of that.

For now, I'll likely return to making Living Steel if it looks profitable and I have mats left over. I'll probably try selling it for the time being, but since I've rarely found enough demand on my server to cover all of my Alchemists, I'm sure I'll end up inadvertently stockpiling some as well.

There are definitely some things to keep in mind, though. You happened to luck out and find a rather large stock of ore at the ridiculously low price of 30g a stack (I sincerely wish my Jewelcrafter would stumble across something like that). At that point, almost anything you can do with it would be profitable.

I feel like that's only part of the equation, though. At least from what I've seen, Living Steel is usually at least somewhat profitable, particularly if you're willing to do a little leg work to ensure the cheapest mats. The more pressing question, in my mind, is whether or not it's more profitable than the alternatives you could be making with those mats. And I think that's a trickier answer.

The saving grace here is that no profession scales infinitely. Eventually, you're making more than the market's demand can bear, and you start crashing prices if you simply produce, say, gems ad infinitum. So, if you can consistently find some ore and/or bars at profitable prices, I would say yes, go for it, but only after you've made anything else you want to make with those mats.

oh definitely! I was lucky to get such cheap ore but on my server, that's actually not unusual over a week or so. I was halfway through a gems/jewellry/disenchanting test when I started my vacation so that will have to wait til I get home again.

I also haven't leveled my Blacksmith that far yet so I haven't looked at the top end patterns there. I have had some luck with the top end leatherwork epics though so I will definitely be looking at those for Blacksmithing too.

Definitely still worth selling it on my Server (Arathor EU). I buy stacks of Ghost Iron Ore whenever they are 30g or less per stack. Once smelted into Ghost Iron Bars I transmute these to Trillium via my Transmute Alchemist. I then transmute to Living Steel on a daily basis but I also sell the Trillium Bars (in stacks of 6 for people who want to but Trillium and transmute it directly to a Living Steel Bar) too as these can also turn a decent profit on my Server.

As long as I can pickup the Ghost Iron Ore for 30g a stack or less (which is very common on my server) then I can turn a good profit on this.

Here on Auchindoun EU the proce of Ghost Iron Ore is started to vary a lot after the nerf to nodes still I would say check daily for a week and you should be able to collect as many stacks as you would want within reasons for a little under 40g a stack, I do much what you describe crafting Living Steel on my 2 Alchemists and then send them to my JC who sells when they are high (360g or more each) and holds onto them when they are below that. I am going to hold onto enough to make the top panther and see if I can sell it for a profit but I need to save up for all the crafting materials.